agoak's page

Unfortunately if my players are looking through the book or printed pdf "it's available on a website under the old system" isn't much use as a guideline, and "buy the legacy book, it's in there" is exactly the problem I have.
I do appreciate the explanation about it being the first remastered book though I am admittedly confused how there were licensing issues in transferring one Paizio book's contents into another Paizio book. Was the brand sold between versions or something?

I'm starting pathfinder with 2e remastered, and it feels like I am being forced to buy legacy products in order to get heritages (or are they ancestries, that wasn't clear either) for the other 4 geniekin that I feel should have been included in rage of the elements.

A big question is whether you want to follow narrative or simulation logic in your design. Narrative will be designed according to the dictates of the story- what types of goods do you want to make difficult to get, what kind of hoops do you want them to have to jump through to get them. Simulation will be based on the question of why the guilds formed and what interests they are protecting. Traditionally trading cations follow family lines, and are based on having some financial advantage or access to certain goods or markets they want to protect. Alternately early banking was largely based on reputations and relationships so associations may form along those lines- a need to be able to trust who you are doing business with.

The players probably don't, but it is there if they do.
I feel it is necessary in order to generate the feel of divine magic that I am looking for in the campaign.

"It is designed to play a specific genre of game where powerful adventurers fight monsters and get treasure." Just like every other system in existence.
Not actually, but pretty close.
The fact is I am not wanting to run a crafting game, or a city building game, and to a degree what I like about pathfinder for these purposes is the fact it has been watered down, so I don't have to start with a badly broken system based on video games and misunderstandings of logistics.

The game is survival and colonization of a frontier, and I'm not asking anybody to write out rules for me. I'm trying to get an idea what typical categorizations are for things like smelting being covered by mining lore versus blacksmithing, or to get into a very concrete example how someone with an artistry specialty is dealt with in terms of painting versus jewelry (I would assume these require separate tool sets at minimum).

Like I said, I can read the rules. What I can't read is how other people have played the game.

Farming and mining I have figured out- mining being the easier one (prospect, find the resource sink the shaft and wind up with a mine that has a "job level" for generating rough ore. Then smash that and extract the base ore and use crafting to refine into ingots, which can be forged into items...

farming is a bit more complicated because I am borrowing from the idea of "gardens' in treasury vault to generate perishable resources (food rots) but not quite on the same time scale... slower to produce and slower to rot.

I do have the standard rules, I wasn't asking for a recitation. I was looking for experience in play about how tools specializations and such work.
The key point here is that for this game, which is about establishing yourself in the absence of civilization, yarn is very much a necessity if you are going to make clothes and don't have a store to go to so you can buy it so you can knit a sweater.
When you have to start by sheering sheep or growing flax then it is a very different dynamic.

Part of the idea with the sanctity ritual is that it is based on the "leadership level" of the congregation rather than the officiant

One thing that would limit the ritual back and forth is the question of how many temples could be in the same area, unless I suppose rival rituals are being performed in the same temple...

I think the increasing levels is a good point, I also might allow it to be cast at range (obviously in miles) at a higher level, if someone wants to try and flood a rival for example...

I'm looking for some idea what the standard or typical breakdowns are for these categories. The game I a building will be very craft focused, to the point where I will need to at least reconsider some of the details (for example, is spinning yarn a weaving skill in terms of concentration? Is a bloomery forging?) At minimum I'm planning to have speed for crafting based on the item/workshop level instead of the character level (injecting a bit of fundamental capitalism into the system), but I would like to hear about how these categories interact in more typical games so I'm not going any further off the beaten path than is necessary.

On the item/circumstance issue I would say both- as follows.
You have a workshop filled with tools that are *not* portable enough to carry around adventuring. The tools give an item bonus when you use them (if they aren't too basic)
If the building itself is well designed or the workshop laid out well it can be eligible for a circumstance bonus.

To me the hard part s to avoid the trap of it becoming a "city builder" type ruleset embedded in an RPG, where you simply have a list of buildings and benefits that becomes its own separate system.

The sanctity ritual is another one I have created, much less costly in terms of failure... part of the reasoning here is that the ritual is asking a deity (or his representatives) for a favor, and gods can get touchy about people messing up their rituals when asking for a favor.

The sanctity ritual for Bactran:
Cast 4 hours Cost0 GP in incense per temple level
Secondary Casters:3+
Primary Check Religion Secondary Checks Bactran Lore, performance, acrobatics
Duration: see below
Requirement:congregation (see below)

When a Temple is consecrated it gains 1 level of sanctification. This ritual raises the current level of sanctity by 1 level. The congregation must be equal in number to the leadership chart in the DM's core for the level one higher than the current sanctity level. When the duration period of the consecration expires the sanctity drops by 1, if it reaches 0 then the consecration itself is undone.
Critical Success: The temple increases in sanctity to the level of the congregation size by the leadership table in the GM Core
Success: The temple increases one level of sanctity
Failure: Nothing occurs
Critical Failure: The temple loses one level of sanctity

I feel like this needs to be lower than consecrate, but beyond that I am uncertain about what the level should be here as well.
Also worth noting in terms of the original ritual- since it requires sanctity it has to be performed in a consecrated place of worship to Bactran that has that sanctity...

I wouldn't even bother writing these rituals in a normal game but this game is about survival and colonization and building and blessing structures where you might get help from gods seems relevant...

As a simple example- a god of rain has a raindance ritual that can either increase or decrease rainfall for a few days- the deity's name is Bactram, here is the ritual I have currently:

Cast 2 hours Cost 20 GP in incense, 1 point of sanctity
Secondary Casters:2
Primary Check Religion Secondary Checks Bactran Lore, performance (dancing)
Duration: see below
Requirements: lead ritualist with admired or better reputation with the court of Bactran

Dancing, praying, and the burning of incense is used to make the region either more or less attractive to rain spirits using the influence of Bactran.

Critical Success: rainfall is either increased by the normal seasonal maximum for three days or reduced to none for the next cycle of Celeres moon, depending on the ritual intent
Success:Rainfall is increased by what is typical for the season or reduced by 1/2 for the next 24 hours, according to the intention of the ritual
Failure: The same effects as success, but opposite the intentions of the ritual
Critical Failure: Same as the effects of critical success, but opposite the intentions of the ritual
The effects will always manifest according to actual intent- you cannot get the desired effect by intentionally failing at the opposite ritual.

I should note that I have a sanctity mechanism where another ritual (basically a worship ceremony) can raise the sanctity based on the size of the congregation, though it only raises by more than 1 on a critical success.

I have created several rituals associated with specific temples or gods, but I am a bit conflicted/uncertain as to what level they should be. In general terms I am stuck between intent (how commonly would the deity want the ritual to be employed) balance (how does it compare to other rituals in terms of power) and narrative (when do I want the ritual to be available to players).
I could use some alternate perspectives on this. also if anyone favors balance how do I compare the power level for very different ritual effects?

For myself I tend to follow the broad strokes of The Primal Order, where gods receive power from worship but aren't really dependent on it. Plus it takes power to maintain worship in terms of the magic and miracles that mortal worshipers expect.
That is on the deity's side of things- from the mortal side I tend to go by the way societies actually worked before monotheism became predominant, but with a bit more in the way of actual delivery on expectations.

There is context here as well, and in fairness I tend to be very detail oriented...
If you are hiding in the cabbages in the back of a wagon you probably take up more space than if you are dead and stacked like cordwood, and less space than if you are sitting sprawled like someone riding in the back of a pickup.

One interesting trend I have run across is that deities which are worshiped for propriation (keep them quiet so they don't hurt us) often later evolve into benevolent gods of protection from the same hostile forces that were originally threatening the population with...

Some of this, I'm sure, is a simple matter of divine diplomacy. If you don't want the scary god of storms to blow you away with a lightning bolt you express gratitude for his protection to try and reframe the relationship into something more benevolent. Part of it might also be a sort of theistic Stockholm syndrome...

There will definitely be temple guardians, but the fact is that Champions as written are far more "go out into the world and further my goals" type characters than "watch the door". I'm thinking temple guardians are more likely to be stat block characters who may have champion or cleric like spells only while on the temple grounds. (Which then allows it to connect to my sanctity system for how powerful the guards are without cranking the PC's up to 20 because they build a great church...)

Aside from "why should we fix something obviously wrong" the fact is that a fix would not be that difficult. A simple rule that creatures being hauled as cargo have 4x the bulk they have when being carried would suffice. Not like it needs a whole new system.

Having given this some consideration I think I have been approaching the entire topic in a backwards perspective. If you consider how oath taking works in paleo-paganism then there would be a singular deity or patron that you swear the oath to, even if you worship, deal with or even serve in some context other deities. At that point the real question becomes which deities will (sometimes, because deities are never fully predictable) grant the boon of champion like powers in exchange for taking , and holding to, each specific champion oath.

So that in 3 years there won't be jokes all over the internet about pathfinder physics the way there is about D&D physics.

Single deity devotion within a polytheistic culture is a very complex issue. Within Rome, for example there was an imperial religion with a priesthood which "managed" all of the gods and temples. A few gods who were seen as leaders had their own dedicated priesthood, and a few that were borrowed from conquered people had their own cults of followers that might not even have a regular priest, or where a sort of ritual specialist might cover a few different deities.
How much a priest was devoted to a singular deity had more to do with the demands of time and administration than with theology. At the same time those gods weren't running around granting spell lists or sending clear plain messages to anyone they considered significant. An unreasonable deity could demand devotion, but if there isn't the work and income to justify it (priests need to eat) then it just won't happen.

The fact is it could have been at least possible to drag each other out of harms way with a much higher bulk- right now any but the weakest party member can pick someone up without encumbrance and carry them away. Even if that is the goal a system to revise bulk for wagons and other forms of cargo transport wouldn't be hard to implement.

Right now I am looking at this from a world design point of view and I am frustrated by how much the need for a "patron deity" is emphasized. This wasn't really a part of any paleo-paganism and just feels like an imposition of a monotheistic framework into the system- sure there are many gods but you have to pick one to follow.
unfortunately simply doing away with that breaks some very real mechanisms of balance since the entire edicts and anathemas system ties in. The best I am coming up with right now is removing the rule about needing a patron amidst a covenant or pantheon (and trying to understand how you have a patron in a covenant of non-deities anyways)

okay, let me ask this- if I use this idea of meta-organizations with champions, a noble house established for centuries has their own order of priests- the order directs the worship of multiple deities whose goals align with the house's goals, and this order has champions- what is the difference between being a champion of this household order and being a house guardsman, aside from being able to do neat divine stuff?

Human beings have a density slightly below that of water, depending on what percentage body far they have. grain generally has a density of 1.2 to 1.6 so the grains take up less weight per volume than a human body. So much for it being about "how much can fit", since the same weight (lower volume) of grain has a *higher* bulk than a human body by RAW.
Fundamentally human beings have incredibly low bulk compared to anything else of the same approximate size- fixing this would require that we either increase the bulk of creatures by size category of change the relationships of every other measure of bulk.

My thought was that there could be champions if they are empowered by an intense devotion to the death goddess instead of being empowered by the death goddess herself.

There would definitely be the covenant style groups, but while they might have mystical traditions associated with them they would not, for example, be actual clerics, because a group of mortals simply can't grant that type of power...

At the same time priests who serve multiple deities (in his setting) tend to be oracles instead of clerics.

It is rules related at least as I am trying to keep this close to RAW...

Most RPG's treat polytheism as simply "choose your deity" monotheism- pathfinder is much better than most in this regard, but for the setting I am building it gets... complicated.
For example since clerics must be exclusive in their service (not worship, but service), I'm following a sort of Roman template where some deities have dedicated priests wo can be clerics and others do not.
The tricky part comes in with Champions. First of all most deities are going to be far more lenient with accepting champions because if nothing else champions will defend their temples. Plus you don't want your soldiers to have divided loyalties if a holy war breaks out. However there is at least one deity who just really isn't all that interested in being worshiped (being the keeper of the dead she has all the attention she needs from the souls of the dead) but mortals keep pestering her anyways... so would someone who is devoted to this goddess still be able to be her champion or would the goddess themselves (or her representative- like the designated angel) need to bless the position?

Unlike your examples a human body and sacks of grain have roughly the same density. Your counter-arguments avoid the issue I'm raising to introduce straw men.

I didn't make any reference to specific vehicles, or any of the points you are arguing. I simply indicated that (for a wagon) the difficulty in pulling a 175 pound person and 175 pounds of flour or grain should be the same.
What the load limit should or should not be was not part of my point, it was entirely about how the actual load was calculated.

Would that remove the penalty for an improvised weapon for the followers?

Can a deity have an improvised weapon as a favorite weapon. For example a deity of fear having a pitchfork as a favored weapon?

The place I really started was figuring out what wagons were capable of carrying, which really does feel (emphasis on feel here) broken, because a horse carrying 175 pound person in a wagon and the same horse pulling 175 pounds of grain should have the same effective contribution towards encumbrance.
Which may mean that wagons need some sort of modifiers to reduce the effective load of certain types of objects...

I'm enjoying the discussion, but I think I've found what I'm looking for elsewhere, essentially in applying troop rules to teams of workmen for accomplishing civil tasks. The +1 per level still feels steep. but the progression rate is also not what I am used to so I think I'm going to try it out in standard with the work crews before I make further adjustments.

It strikes me that even if a witch "discovers" who their patron is, it could wind up being a false flag situation-

The fey winter queen giving orders to "destroy traitors" claiming to be the summer queen, for example. Though with the number and diversity of powerful potential patrons I'm certain it can get much more complex and devious than that...

Once again, graystone, encumbrance for an eight hour hike in the real world is a meaningless comparison, since a person hiking for 8 hours naked in the real world will become exhausted.

Tridus, I am an engineer, so even when I am given a number range for a guideline I want to see how it works. The conflict with people and horses was where is where I started seeing problems, but then decided to look at real world objects that are of regular shapes rather than being unwieldy and oblong, like sacks of flour or dumbbell weights, and the while guideline just seemed like utter nonsense. So of course I had to try and figure out what it should be.

The fact is hat anyone moving as fast as they could with nothing on for several hours will get tired. Nobody finishes a marathon as fresh as a daisy, and nobody runs a marathon at the same speed they do a 50 yard dash. Even walking 8 hours carrying nothing without a break will leave someone tired, so your basis of comparison makes no sense.

I use weights for two reasons- first they are a pretty clear about how hard they are to carry, and they are generally made of the same material (iron) as medieval weaponry.

Also considering that the range for strength is from -1 to 4 without hitting the exceptional range I don't think Str:1 would be average- more like str: 1.5, maybe Str:1

Which means a medium person (bulk 6) is light encumbrance. How long an average person can carry another human being seems like a better measure of what that means than what they can run with for hours.

Though I have never seen a person climb a rope while carrying another person either.

Now I was just basing my estimation of hat a marine carried based on my dad's experiences in Vietnam, but looking it up a marine's load for combat ranges from 60-100 pounds on average topping out at 117 pounds, https://www.mca-marines.org/wp-content/uploads/Paying-for-Weight-in-Blood.p df lists data for casualty rates amongst marines carrying 120 pounds- you might also note on that sight that while they list a fighting load of 65 pounds they compare this to actual load of 117 pounds.

So fundamentally your numbers are wrong.

That said given the descriptions of what load means, it seems like there are a lot of bad numbers involved, since in game people can do things carrying these loads that people cannot actually d unencumbered, and the creature loads look even more unrealistic.

Player core 269 "Generally an item that weighs 5 to 10 pounds is one bulk" That sounds like a weight to bulk conversion to me.

I started posting in the other thread, I posted here because I do believe it should be errata. Even if the bulk is going to be a range for the weight based rough estimate it should be significantly higher than 5-10 pounds.

I was talking about day laborers tossing around 45 pounds, not 100.

Now object shape and dimensions are certainly an issue for something abstract like bulk, but if we are talking about a generalization based on weight alone that is something completely different. thee is a reason food and general supplies tend to come in 50 pound bags, and it isn't because it is over the maximum amount that normal people can haul around.
of course using a 5-10 pound guideline it puts the bulk between 5-10, which is a very significant range in and of itself.
On the other hand I have watched 14 year old boys haul 50 pound bags of dirt or other supplies for 4 hours straight. It certainly shouldn't be something that is reaching into the strong man definitions.

A guideline of 25 pounds per bulk "or more" for objects that are just unwieldy not only fits the real world better but it makes the medium size definition fit the guidelines.

I see a lot of discussion for how PWL affects combat, but what about non-combat skills? I'm planning a colonization/fleeing the apocalypse game, where most of the challenges will be about finding and managing necessary resources (without making it a sim), and I'm kind of ambivalent about how much level seems to dominate everything with the standard rules.
Disclaimer: I am also a recent convert to PF2e remastered, so my impressions are mostly from reading and modeling the rules. That said the idea that someone has +18 to a craft skill because they started the game with it trained and never used it but spent 18 levels slaying monsters while someone else invested the time to train it up to master level but is level 7 only has a +15 kind of feels wrong...

also contemplating removing the level limits for skill improvements...
or the possibility of using different rules variation for different skill groups.

Actually a 5 pound weapon is pretty small. Go to a gym, look at the 10 pound iron weight that can be attached to a bar. It's about 6 inches in diameter- longswords are much bigger.

Marines carry 100 pounds of gear over day long hikes without difficulty, and they are not all weightlifting musclemen. The idea that the maximum unencumbered load is the same as what day laborers pick up and toss around one handed is frankly absurd.

A str 4 character is supposed to be at the high end of human normal strength. Giving a maximum level for encumbered that is lower than what an actual human in that strength range can curl seems a bit off.
I may have used the wrong term, but I stand by the observation that 5-10 pounds per bulk is way too low.
Marines routinely hike 30 miles with over 100 pounds of gear, and are not slowed by it.

I would suggest the following errata for the rules on loads:
1) base weight to load conversion should be 25 pounds per load, not 5.Someone with Str:4 should be able to carry more that 45 pounds without being encumbered.
2) creature load should be x4 difference by size category, not x2. so a large creature (horse) would be load:12, a small creature would be load:2, and so forth.

Giving this some thought it sems to me that he bulk system as written has two major flaws:
1st, the equation of 5 lbs=1 bulk. This means that with a maximum bulk of 5+str and beefy starting character can only carry 45 pounds. I have worked jobs where the minimum requirement for physical capability was the ability to lift 40 pounds with a single hand. This is a far cry from the "epic heroes" the system is supposed to model, and bulk 1=25 pounds would make much more sense, which also then would put a bulk:6 human at 150 lbs, which comes out about right. The other point is that bulk for larger creatures should multiply by 4 per level instead of two- so a small character would be bulk 2, a tiny would be L, a large creature (like a horse) would be bulk:24 and so on.

II was apparently looking elsewhere, thank you.

Sorites Paradox...the one that asks when does a heap of grain cease being a heap as you remove one grain at a time...is not a paradox on Golarion. They likely have quite rigorous vocabulary re: heaps & weights, etc. because residents know exactly when removing one coin alters a pile of coins. They likely would've made 10 coins weight one L because of the simplicity given that's how physics operates. That's a knock against Bulk, not against Golarions that make use of that difference or PCs' player puppeteers. Any encumbrance system will have demarcations like this, as nobody wants a system so granular that there's a spectrum of encumbrance states. But I think Bulk swung too far the other direction. Unlike with weight, I can hardly use my intuition to adjudicate using Bulk. It's simpler to ignore Bulk entirely re: moving a statue, etc., especially with fantasy creatures & superhuman PCs.

In PF1 I had a pig familiar, if only because it could carry the staff that'd push my feeble old PC in plate armor over the encumbrance limit. And he'd often need to drop other gear. Piggy had its own backpack too (and became the mascot of the team in the eyes of the city). So yeah, weight encouraged workarounds too, but Bulk exacerbates that if anything.

The problem, in my mind is simply that how hard it is to carry something depends a lot on how it is being carried. If I put a child in a sack (referencing fables like Krampus) it is a lot harder to carry than if I give them a piggy back ride. A human body carried with fireman's carry might have a low bulk for its weight and size, but when you load it in a cart it is no different per weight than a bundle of bows or sack of potatoes.

Weird issue- I expect this is a rule that has been around long enough that it normally goes without being said but not saying it can be confusing to someone just learning the system.
What I'm referring to is that in "proficiency without level" it discusses removing the level bonus from proficiency, but everywhere the rules talk about proficiency they only mention trained, expert, master, and legendary, with no comment on levels.

I'm considering doing a hybrid game where proficiency doesn't add to everything and was looking for where it defines when to add level, but I can't find it describing actually adding your level anywhere.

For those interested in the design idea I am thinking of allowing level bonuses to magic (generally, but not in combat), and to social encounters (where the social regard of levels would be a factor) but not more "mechanical" things like survival, crafting, or combat. I was trying to find the wording of how the get added to work the idea into that, but as I said, it isn't actually mentioned except for the exception.

Or if it is its buried somewhere obscure that I am not seeing it. (using 2nd ed remastered rules)

Has nobody at Paizo actually seen a gorilla? The zoo I used to take my kids to had an excellent gorilla and chimpanzee exhibit, including a scale and height chart. I am taller than a gorilla, and I am heavier that a female gorilla (maybe half the weight of a male). Sure they are a lot stronger that humans, but they should be in the same size category. They're gorillas, not King Kong.

What gets me is that if you use a large horse to pull a wagon it should be able to pull load 100, which means it could put 8 other horses on that wagon by standard creature loads.
For that matter it means a pair of horses could carry 3 horses between them.

also in terms of raw weight a horse is about 8x the weight of a human, not twice. As written a strong human could carry a horse and have the encumbered condition.

I get how the VP's work, but I am also trying to scale fo experience awarded, and this will be an ongoing character, not just a single encounter, so I am trying to get more than "slap a DC on it and call it good", I'm looking for how to actually calculate the effective social level.